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HELP ME PLEASE - - - SHIPWRIGHT'S DISEASE

To: "Spitfire List" <spitfires@autox.team.net>
Subject: HELP ME PLEASE - - - SHIPWRIGHT'S DISEASE
From: "Dave Terrick" <dterrick@pangea.ca>
Date: Tue, 23 Feb 1999 11:01:43 -0600
Please help me,

My poor 69 GT6+, subject of that nasty race incident this summer,  is in
peril of being yanked off the road for at least another year.  Help me keep
this from happening...

I "thought" I was making reasonable progress on the used hood I'd fitted.
It sits square and level (within 3 mm any way) but the metal needs help.
There are places I need to shrink the metal to lower the high spots from
previous damage, and places where there are "flat spots"  that must be
raised.  I am already far too far into the project to give up, despite the
fact that I am also nowhere near the point of knowing what I need  to finish
the project.

Now then, the problem...

The tub of the car was also damaged.  Both doors have their leading edges
beaten on.  There are stress cracks at the B post near the top of the doors.
There are stress fractures in the bondo on the rear valence.  And the DPO
fitted new sills, poorly, such that the base of the doors never did properly
line up with them.

Now what.

I can;t see spending the rest of my spare time doing the hood and then
living with the trashed tub until next winter (when I do it and not my TR4a,
sorta like this winter was the 4a's time.)  There is no way on God's green
Earth that I will actually PAY a bodyman to re-restore a car that already
isn't worth as much to the insurance company as I've got in it to date.  I
have a '72 model in need of (likely) less work sitting in Minneapolis
waiting for me (impatiently).  My street car is not so slowly rusting away
to the point where I am losing interest in it as a daily driver (but because
of the time and $'s I've spent on the DAMNGT6 I can't afford to replace it
right now).

etc
etc
etc.

End whine.  Any words of wisdom?  An antidote perhaps?

TIA

Dave T
Winterpeg again (first snow in about 6 weeks)


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